Aichi-Nagoya [Japan], October 4 (ANI): India signed off from the Asian Games 2026 in Aichi-Nagoya with a haul of 85 medals, but it surely was the nation’s clear sweep of gold medals in cricket, kabaddi and hockey that offered the defining moments of a marketing campaign which additionally produced record-breaking performances, first-time podium finishes and historic particular person triumphs.
India completed fourth within the total medal standings with 21 gold, 27 silver and 37 bronze medals. China dominated the Games with 341 medals, together with 169 gold, whereas hosts Japan completed second with 269 medals, together with 83 gold. South Korea have been third with 150 medals, together with 39 gold, in response to Olympics.com.
India’s 85-medal haul was beneath the document 106 medals, together with 28 gold, gained at Hangzhou Games in 2023, however the marketing campaign featured a number of landmark achievements throughout disciplines.
The greatest success got here within the three group sports activities the place India entered each males’s and ladies’s competitions — cricket, kabaddi and hockey — and returned with gold medals in all six occasions.
In cricket, India accomplished a golden double after the ladies’s group gained the title earlier than the lads’s aspect defeated arch-rivals Pakistan by 19 runs within the remaining.
The males’s group, powered by contributions from Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma and Axar Patel, added the gold to the ladies’s group’s emphatic 147-run victory over Sri Lanka within the girls’s remaining.
Kabaddi produced one other clear sweep. India’s girls defeated Iran 37-34 in a carefully fought remaining to efficiently defend their title, whereas the lads’s group got here from behind to beat Iran 40-34.
The males’s gold was India’s ninth in 10 editions since kabaddi turned a males’s group sport on the Asian Games in 1990. The solely exception got here in 2018, when India gained bronze. The girls’s group, in the meantime, continued its dominance for the reason that sport’s introduction to the ladies’s programme in 2010.
Hockey accomplished India’s clear sweep within the group sports activities. The girls’s group ended a 44-year look ahead to an Asian Games medal by defeating China 1-0 within the remaining, with Lalremsiami scoring the decisive purpose within the tenth minute.
The victory was India’s first girls’s hockey gold on the Asian Games since 1982.
The males’s group adopted with a 5-1 win over Malaysia within the remaining, efficiently defending its Asian Games title. It was India’s fifth males’s hockey gold after victories in 1966, 1998, 2014 and 2022, and the primary time the Indian males’s and ladies’s hockey groups gained gold on the identical version.
With these wins, India males’s and ladies’s hockey groups certified for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, reserving their seats efficiently.
Archery was one other standout self-discipline, with India gathering 9 medals — 5 gold, two silver and two bronze — throughout the ten occasions.
Seventeen-year-old Kumkum Mohod emerged because the face of India’s archery marketing campaign. The Amravati teenager turned the primary Indian to win a person recurve gold on the Asian Games after defeating South Korea’s Oh Yejin in a shoot-off.
With the ultimate tied 5-5, Oh shot an eight within the shoot-off earlier than Kumkum responded with a ten to assert the title and an LA 2028 Olympic quota place for India.
Kumkum additionally gained gold within the girls’s recurve group occasion and silver within the combined recurve group occasion alongside Dhiraj Bommadevara, ending the Games with three medals.
India additionally secured medals within the males’s particular person recurve occasion, with Neeraj Chauhan profitable bronze. Dhiraj had misplaced his semi-final to South Korea’s Lee Wooseok, whereas Chauhan was crushed by Japan’s Junya Nakanishi earlier than the 2 Indians met within the bronze-medal contest.
India’s compound archers added three group gold medals and a person bronze, with the ladies’s particular person occasion the one archery competitors by which India didn’t win a medal.
The nine-medal haul matched India’s document from Hangzhou and included medals throughout all 5 recurve occasions — two gold, two silver and a bronze.
Boxing delivered India’s greatest Asian Games marketing campaign by way of gold medals, with three titles and three bronze medals.
Lovlina Borgohain, Parveen Hooda and Ankush Panghal gained gold, whereas Kapil Pokhariya, Narender Berwal and Priya Ghanghas secured bronze.
Lovlina defeated China’s Ziyi Bao 5-0 within the girls’s 75kg remaining on her twenty ninth birthday. The Olympic bronze medallist upgraded her silver from Hangzhou and have become solely the second Indian girl after Mary Kom to win an Asian Games boxing gold.
Parveen produced one of many greatest wins of India’s marketing campaign, defeating Paris 2024 Olympic bronze medallist and former world champion Chen Nien-Chin of Chinese Taipei 3-2 within the girls’s 65kg remaining.
Ankush Panghal accomplished the gold-medal sweep with a 4-0 split-decision victory over South Korea’s Kim Min-seong within the males’s 80kg remaining.
Wrestling additionally loved considered one of its greatest campaigns in a long time, with India profitable six medals — two gold, two silver and two bronze.
Paris 2024 bronze medallist Aman Sehrawat gained gold within the males’s 57kg freestyle class after defeating reigning world champion Han Chong Song of North Korea 11-7.
Sujeet Kalkal had earlier gained the lads’s 65kg freestyle title, giving India two wrestling golds.
Antim Panghal claimed silver within the girls’s 53kg class after dropping 9-1 to Japan’s Moe Kiyooka, whereas Nitesh Siwach gained silver in Greco-Roman 97kg. Deepak Punia added bronze in males’s freestyle 97kg and Sunil Kumar gained bronze in Greco-Roman 87kg.
The six-medal haul was India’s greatest wrestling tally at an Asian Games since Jakarta 1962.
Shooting produced 15 medals — three gold, eight silver and 4 bronze — though the haul was beneath India’s document 22-medal return from Hangzhou.
Neeru Dhanda was the standout performer, profitable two golds and a silver within the entice occasions. She turned the primary Indian girl to win a person Asian Games gold in a shotgun occasion earlier than partnering Kynan Chenai to combined group entice gold. She had earlier helped Aashima Ahlawat and Manisha Keer win silver within the girls’s group occasion.
Suruchi Singh and Kamaljeet gained gold within the 10m air pistol combined group occasion after setting an Asian document within the remaining.
Elavenil Valarivan gained two silver medals, whereas Rudrankksh Patil collected three medals throughout rifle occasions. Esha Singh added silver within the girls’s 25m pistol after a dramatic shoot-off towards China’s Xiao Jiaruixuan.
Manu Bhaker, nonetheless, endured a disappointing marketing campaign, returning and not using a medal from 4 alternatives.
Athletics was India’s largest medal-producing self-discipline, with 24 medals — one gold, 9 silver and 14 bronze.
The girls’s 4x400m relay quartet of Kiran Pahal, Machettira Poovamma, Prachi Choudhary and Vithya Ramraj delivered India’s solely athletics gold, ending a title drought courting again to Hangzhou 2023 and restoring the nation to the highest of the rostrum within the occasion for the primary time since Jakarta 2018.
Vithya was amongst India’s a number of medallists, including combined 4x400m relay silver and 400m hurdles bronze. Her 54.75-second run within the hurdles additionally broke PT Usha’s long-standing nationwide document from the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
Gulveer Singh gained two silver medals within the 10,000m and 1500m and a bronze within the 5000m.
Sawan Barwal gained males’s marathon silver with a nationwide document of two:11:37, ending India’s 44-year look ahead to a medal within the occasion. Parul Chaudhary lowered her personal nationwide document within the girls’s 3000m steeplechase whereas profitable bronze.
India additionally gained its first Asian Games silver in males’s excessive soar by way of Sarvesh Kushare, whereas Baranica Elangovan turned the nation’s first Asian Games medallist in girls’s pole vault with bronze.
Golf produced one other historic second by way of Pranavi Urs, who turned the primary Indian girl to win a person Asian Games golf gold.
The 23-year-old from Mysuru completed at 15-under 265, one stroke forward of China’s Yin Ruoning and Singapore’s Shannon Tan.
Pranavi additionally helped India win silver within the girls’s group occasion alongside Aditi Ashok and Diksha Dagar. India completed at 14-under 546, behind China.
Squash produced 5 medals — two silver and three bronze. Teenager Anahat Singh and Abhay Singh gained silver within the girls’s and males’s singles respectively, whereas Joshna Chinappa and Velavan Senthilkumar gained combined doubles bronze.
India’s males’s and ladies’s groups additionally took bronze. The males’s group had entered as defending champions however misplaced to Malaysia within the semi-finals.
Sailing delivered three medals, together with India’s first-ever Asian Games silver within the males’s skiff. Manu Francis and Prince Kurisinkal Noble completed second, whereas Harshita Tomar and Shital Verma gained girls’s skiff bronze.
Nethra Kumanan ended India’s 12-year look ahead to a medal within the girls’s dinghy by profitable bronze. She improved on her fourth-place end at Hangzhou.
Weightlifting veteran Mirabai Chanu lastly accomplished her Asian Games medal assortment with silver within the girls’s 49kg class. She lifted 198kg, together with 87kg in snatch and 111kg in clear and jerk, to safe her maiden Asiad medal.
India additionally collected medals in various disciplines the place podium finishes have historically been much less frequent.
Roshibina Devi gained silver in girls’s 60kg sanda in wushu, whereas Suchika Tariya created historical past by profitable India’s maiden Asian Games MMA medal, a bronze within the girls’s conventional -60kg class.
Jay Meena secured India’s first Asian Games medal in gentle tennis, taking bronze within the males’s singles.
In rowing, Satnam Singh and Salman Khan gained bronze in males’s double sculls.
Kurash athlete Pincky Balhara gained bronze in girls’s 78kg, including a second Asian Games medal after her silver at Jakarta 2018.
India additionally gained bronze within the males’s quadrant occasion in sepaktakraw.
Badminton proved a comparatively disappointing marketing campaign, with India managing just one medal — bronze within the males’s group occasion. The males’s group misplaced to China within the semi-finals, whereas the ladies’s group exited within the quarter-finals towards Japan.
PV Sindhu reached the ladies’s singles quarter-finals earlier than dropping to Olympic champion Chen Yufei, whereas Unnati Hooda additionally reached the final eight. Defending males’s doubles champions Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have been eradicated within the opening spherical.
Table tennis produced one historic bronze by way of Manush Shah and Diya Chitale in combined doubles. The world No. 8 pair defeated Hong Kong China’s higher-ranked mixture within the quarter-finals earlier than dropping to China’s Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha within the final 4.
It was India’s fourth desk tennis medal in Asian Games historical past.
India’s total medal tally was due to this fact constructed on a large unfold of performances. Alongside the key gold-medal successes in cricket, hockey, kabaddi, archery, taking pictures, boxing, wrestling and golf, the marketing campaign featured first-time podium finishes in areas similar to MMA, gentle tennis, girls’s pole vault and males’s skiff crusing.
The 85-medal end fell wanting the 106 medals gained at Hangzhou, together with 28 gold, however Aichi-Nagoya nonetheless produced a collection of serious milestones for Indian sport.
From Kumkum Mohod securing an LA 2028 quota and changing into India’s first particular person recurve Asian Games champion, to Neeru Dhanda’s three-medal taking pictures haul, Lovlina’s birthday gold, Pranavi Urs’ historic golf title and the simultaneous hockey, cricket and kabaddi gold sweeps, India’s marketing campaign provided a mixture of established dominance and new breakthroughs.
As the Asian Games moved in direction of the closing ceremony, India completed fourth behind China, Japan and South Korea, with its 21 gold, 27 silver and 37 bronze medals reflecting a marketing campaign that produced each acquainted champions and a brand new technology of continental medallists. (ANI)